Powers/Abilities:As
well as being extremely smart, Gay Guy carries a utility purse containing
various gadgets. He also appears to know he is in a comic strip, and is capable
of using this to his advantage - for example he manages to hit someone across
the room by realising where they will be standing in the next panel and elbowing
out the side of the panel he is in to connect with their head (see left).
He also uses the pointed end of a word balloon to pick a lock in another
strip.

History: One
night young Gaylord Le Guye was walking home from a movie when notorious
female criminal Ruby the Dyke accosts him, stealing his lollipop. The tearful
young lad thinks to himself "That lady was nasty! Ergo all ladies are nasty!"
That night he swears an oath by his bedside. "I swear by the spirit of my
poor lollipop that I shall spend my life fighting evil!!" Years later, using
the inheritance from his parents (who were also knocked off by bad guys -
but that, as the strip says, is another story [Batman's]) he sets himself
up in business as a top hairstylist and prepares to fulfill his youthful
pledge. "Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so my disguise must
be able to strike terror into their hearts! I must become a creature of the
night!...black...terrible...a....a...." As he is trying to decide, a small
creature flutters through the window (see right), a butterfly. And thus is
born the queer figure of the dark, the avenger of evil, the Gay Guy!

Comments:Created by John Byrne. This was some of his earliest
work, done for his college newspaper, The Emery Weal. Byrne did 13 episodes
of the story, pitting Gay Guy first against
Charisma, and then setting up for the battle
against Snowbird (which didn't happen before
Byrne finished on the strip). Nowadays it would probably be considered
tremendously politically incorrect.

Gay Guy worked with Chief Znurn of the police, who would contact him on the
Fay Fone. His base was hidden under Mr Gaylord's Beauty Salon, and included
a secret exit for the Homobile to drive out of.

The schtick of making use of the fact you are in a comic strip would be re-used
by Byrne for his run on the She-Hulk.

Thanks to Mike Murphy for providing information and images of this character.